The Blog and Memoirs of Jerry Seltzer.

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You can’t be successful without tickets….

No, I don’t mean from Ann Calvello’s expression.

At Northwestern I majored in business, so of course I had to learn basic accounting. In the summer of 1957 we were living in Los Angeles, and I was working for the Roller Derby Skate Company (what do you mean you didn’t know about this company? they are still one of the largest in America). Leo’s brother Oscar was operating a “unit” that was going to play in the baseball park in San Diego, and since that was part of my sales territory, I was asked if I would like to work in the box office.

Yes, I know this is a year before I actually joined Roller Derby as a manager, so I don’t really count this time.

Image by djshaw from stock.xchng.com.

At the time there was an extensive amount of discount tickets used through supermarkets in the area, and they had to be redeemed at the event at the ticket booth, and there was an amazing statistic of over 97% of all tickets sold at the box office (there was no other way then; before computerized ticketing)were sold at a discount. It was obvious that the ticket sellers were getting discount tickets, bringing them to work, and claiming that virtually all tickets were discounted, and keeping the 50 cents per for themselves.

I immediately set up a system to put someone I trusted in a separate location who would issue a discount slip with their initials to the customer who would then go and buy their tickets……for some reason, discounted tickets dropped to about 35% of all sales.

Event promoters think that if they get 1000 people and they paid $15 they have maximized attendance. From almost the beginning of when I started in Derby of my intent was to maximize sales for any given game. And since distribution systems were so inefficient, and the public does not like to have to go to a lot of trouble to get tickets, they will just give up and do something else. Thus, as I explained in another post, when Ticketron came into the marketplace, I saw that computerized ticketing was a way to make buying easier, and our attendance jumped an average of 15% with no additional promotion.

So I won’t re-bore you with my exploits in computerized ticketing (read Ticketmasters, from Amazon – and you will will see why distribution and service charges are where they are, and my particular contributions to the distribution system), but obviously I have kept abreast (ok, no tickets pun intended) with developments and especially what could be done with the relatively small user.

My friend and former compatriot at Ticketmaster, James Goodman, contacted me and asked if I would take a look at a paperless system, the ideal approach to ticketing. I did, and have now become a consultant with Scott Thorpe at Mogotix.com.

This system seems to solve all the problems and eliminate the need for many people to sell tickets and for long lines. You simple take any mobile phone, access the event app, buy any amount you want; pass your credit card in front of your phone, and voila, that is the transaction – and your credit card is not captured for the future. When you get to the event, your phone is read and you are sent to your seating area.

No paper, no will call, no fuss, no muss. And if there are long lines, the so-called ticket takers can just move through them and scan your phone. And people who are approaching the event who haven’t bought their tickets, can do so as they near the entry or from their car…..no need to go to a ticket window. Of course you still can print from your computer if you don’t have a phone.

And the service charge is ridiculously low, and if the league or event has another game they are announcing that night, fans can just pull out their phones and buy then.

Don’t believe me? Go to mogotix.com and run a demo. No set up fees or nothing. The Commissioner loves these easy solutions.

A lot of interest from this post…..go to Jerry Seltzer or Gerald Seltzer home page on facebook and there are three different short videos demonstrating how simple and effective mogotix is. Would the Commissioner lie to you, even for money?